Railway-switch and operating means therefor.



, PATENTED MAY 10, 1904. L. A. LINDSEY, S. MOGONNELL & G. O. HUDSON. RAILWAY SWITCH AND OPERATING MEANS THEREFOR.

APPLICATION FILED NOV. 23, 1903.

N0 MODEL.

UNITED STATES Patented May 10, 1904.

PATENT OFFICE.

LUCIUS A. LINDSEY, STRUBBE MOCONNELL, AND CLIFFORD C. HUDSON,

OF ATLANTA, GEORGIA.

RAILWAY-SWITCH AND OPERATlN G MEANS THEREFOR.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 7 59,385, dated May 10, 1904.

' Application filed November 23, 1903. 7 Serial No. 182,366. (No model.)

To a whom, it may concern.

Be it known that we, LUCIUS A. LINDSEY,

-STRUBBE MoCoNNEL and CLIFFORD G. HUD- SON, citizens of the United States, residing at Atlanta, in the county of Fulton and State of ing Means Therefor, of which the'following I is a specification.

Our invention pertains to railway-switches and operating means therefor; and it has for its object to provide simple, durable, and reliable electromechanical means through the medium of which the tongue of a switch may be quickly and conveniently moved to the position desired by the motorman of a car ape proaching the switch without the necessity of stopping the car.

With the foregoing in mind the invention will be fully understood from the following description and claims when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, in which- Figure 1 is a plan view of the construction constituting the preferred embodiment of our invention; Fig. 2, a detail view, partly in side elevation and partly in vertical section, illustrative of the manner in which the car device of our invention operates in conjunction with the contact-rails; Fig. 3. a transverse section taken in the plane indicated by the line 3 3 of Fig. 2; Fig. 4, a horizontal section taken through the depending lug on the tongue of the switch in a plane above the electromagnets for moving the tongue; Fig. 5, an inverted perspective View of the switch-tongue removed, and Fig. 6 a detail horizontal section taken in the plane indicated by the line 6 6 of Fig. 2.

Similar letters designate corresponding parts in all of the views of the drawings, referring to which A is the continuous or unbroken rail of a main track; B, the interrupted or broken rail thereof; G,the spur-rail of a turnout into which one portion of the rail B merges, and D the other rail of the turnout. These parts may be and preferably are of the ordinary wellknown construction; but we desire it undering lug a.

stood that they may be of any other construction suitable to the purposes of our invention without involving departure from thesame.

E is a pivoted switch-tongue having its heel abutting against one portion of the broken main-track rail and its point adapted to be thrown against the other portion of said rail after the manner illustrated in Fig. 1. The said tongue is peculiar in that it has a depend- (Best shown in Fig. 5-) F F are electromagnets disposed at opposite sides of the lug a on tongue E and contained in a case b, sunk in the ground. In virtue of this arrangement of the electromagnets F F with reference to the lug a it will be observed that when the magnets F are energized the tongue E will be moved into the position shown by dotted lines in Fig. 1,- so as to guide a'car on the turnout, while when the magnets F are energized the tongue will be moved G G are contact-rails disposed at opposite sides of one of the main-track rails, preferably the rail B. -The contact-railshave rounded ends, Fig. 2, for a purpose which will presently appear, and are electrically connected by wires 0 or other suitable means with the electromagnets F F, respectively. The magnets are electrically connected in turn with the ground after the manner shown in Figs. 1 and 4.

H, Fig. 2, is a car, and I our novel car device, through the medium of which a motorman on the car is enabled to energize either pair of magnets and move the tongue E to the position desired without stopping the car. In

raised position by springs f, interposed ,between them and the dashboard, contact-brushes g g, carried by said arms and arranged to engage the contact-rails GG, respectively, and a hand-lever lb, fulcrumed on the dashboard of the car and having a T-head 2' at its lower end arranged above and adapted to engage the rearwardly extending portions of the arms dd. The arms d d are electrically connected, through the medium of a wire for other means, with the source of current-supply from which current is taken to drive the car. It is obvious, however, that the said arms (Z d might be connected With an electrogenerator independent of the car-propelling means without involving a departure from the scope of our invention.

In the practical operation of our improvements it will be observed that when the tongue E is'set for the main track and it is the Wish of the motorman of an approaching car to take the car upon the turnout it is simply necessary for the motorman to depress the arm (Z of the car device through the medium of the lever it. With this done,when the car reaches the contact-rails G G the brush g will engage the contact-rail, and in consequence electric current will flow from the source of supply through the wire j, the arm d, the brush 9, the contact-rail G, one wire 0, and the electromagnets F, energizing the latter and moving the tongue E into the position shown by dotted lines in Fig. 1. It will also be observed that when the tongue E is set for the siding or turnout the motorman has but to manipulate the lever it so as to depress the arm d and brush g,when in consequence of said brush engaging the contact-rail G the magnets F will be energized and the tongue E moved to the position shown by full lines in Fig. 1.

It will be readily appreciated from the foregoing that our improvements are reliable in operation and may be depended on to move the tongue E without the necessity of slowing up or stopping the car; also, that notwithstanding the reliability of the improvements and the facility with which the tongue E may be thrown the improvements are simple and inexpensive and embody no delicate parts such as are likely to get out of order after a short period of use.

While we prefer to conduct the electric current from the electromagnets to the ground in the manner before described, it is obvious that the current may be conducted from the magnets to any conductor or receiver without affecting our invention.

We have entered into a detail description of the construction and relative arrangement of the parts embraced in the present and preferred embodiment of our invention in order to impart a full, clear, and exact understanding of the same. We do not desire, however, to be understood as confining ourselves to such specific construction and relative arrangement of parts, as such changes or modifications may be made in practice as fairly fall within the scope of our invention as claimed.

Having described our invention, what we we claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is*

The combination with a switch tongue or point, having a depending portion, a casing sunk in the ground and receiving said depending portion, electromagnets disposed in the casing at opposite sides of said depending portion, and contact-rails on the surface, each electrically connected with one electromagnet; of a car, and a device on the car comprising vertically-movable arms pivoted to and extending rearwardly and downwardly from the dashboard of the car, and carrying means adapted to engage the contact-rails, springs connected to the dashboard and interposed between the same and the arms so as to normally hold the latter in a raised position, and a handlever fulcrumed above the arms and having a T-head disposed transversely to and adapted to bear on the rearwardly-extending portions of the arms; said device being adapted to be electrically connected with a source of electric energy.

In testimony whereof we have hereunto set our hands in presence of two subscribing witnesses.

WVitnesses:

J. O. C. CARLTON, D. O. CLEMENT. 

